No, that won't work. If you need to keep the values along with the keys you can build it into the sort:

@pairs = sort { $a->[1] <=> $b->[1] } 
           map { [ $_ => $word_list{$_} ] }
             keys %word_list;
print "word $_->[0] = $_->[1]\n" for @pairs;
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This works by building up a list of two-element arrays using map. The first element is the key and the second element is the value. Then sort is used to sort them by the second element. The return value is a list of two-element arrays, sorted by their second element.

You might recognize this as the tail of a Schwartzian Transform.

-sam